Memeorandum

July 21, 2009

Sunspots And Climate Change - The Times Steps Forward

What do we know about sunspot cycles and their effect on the climate? Not much, but the Times has some coverage:

Ever since Samuel Heinrich Schwabe, a German astronomer, first noted
in 1843 that sunspots burgeon and wane over a roughly 11-year cycle,
scientists have carefully watched the Sun’s activity. In the latest
lull, the Sun should have reached its calmest, least pockmarked state
last fall.

...

A panel of 12 scientists assembled by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration now predicts that the May 2013 peak will
average 90 sunspots during that month. That would make it the weakest
solar maximum since 1928, which peaked at 78 sunspots. During an
average solar maximum, the Sun is covered with an average of 120
sunspots.

But the panel’s consensus “was not a unanimous decision,” said
Douglas A. Biesecker, chairman of the panel. One member still believed
the cycle would roar to life while others thought the maximum would
peter out at only 70.

Solar activity seems to tie into the climate change debate by mechanisms which are not clear:

The idea that solar cycles are related to climate is hard to fit
with the actual change in energy output from the sun. From solar
maximum to solar minimum, the Sun’s energy output drops a minuscule 0.1
percent.

But the overlap of the Maunder Minimum with the Little Ice Age, when
Europe experienced unusually cold weather, suggests that the solar
cycle could have more subtle influences on climate.

One possibility proposed a decade ago by Henrik Svensmark and other
scientists at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen looks to
high-energy interstellar particles known as cosmic rays. When cosmic
rays slam into the atmosphere, they break apart air molecules into ions
and electrons, which causes water and sulfuric acid in the air to stick
together in tiny droplets. These droplets are seeds that can grow into
clouds, and clouds reflect sunlight, potentially lowering temperatures.

The Sun, the Danish scientists say, influences how many cosmic rays
impinge on the atmosphere and thus the number of clouds. When the Sun
is frenetic, the solar wind of charged particles it spews out
increases. That expands the cocoon of magnetic fields around the solar
system, deflecting some of the cosmic rays.

But, according to the hypothesis, when the sunspots and solar winds
die down, the magnetic cocoon contracts, more cosmic rays reach Earth,
more clouds form, less sunlight reaches the ground, and temperatures
cool.

“I think it’s an important effect,” Dr. Svensmark said, although he
agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that has certainly
contributed to recent warming.

Dr. Svensmark and his colleagues found a correlation between the
rate of incoming cosmic rays and the coverage of low-level clouds
between 1984 and 2002. They have also found that cosmic ray levels,
reflected in concentrations of various isotopes, correlate well with
climate extending back thousands of years.

But other scientists found no such pattern with higher clouds, and
some other observations seem inconsistent with the hypothesis.

Terry Sloan, a cosmic ray expert at the University of Lancaster in
England, said if the idea were true, one would expect the
cloud-generation effect to be greatest in the polar regions where the
Earth’s magnetic field tends to funnel cosmic rays.

“You’d expect clouds to be modulated in the same way,” Dr. Sloan said. “We can’t find any such behavior.”

Still, “I would think there could well be some effect,” he said, but
he thought the effect was probably small. Dr. Sloan’s findings indicate
that the cosmic rays could at most account for 20 percent of the
warming of recent years.

Even without cosmic rays, however, a 0.1 percent change in the Sun’s
energy output is enough to set off El Niño- and La Niña-like events
that can influence weather around the world, according to new research
led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Climate modeling showed that over the largely cloud-free areas of
the Pacific Ocean, the extra heating over several years warms the
water, increasing evaporation. That intensifies the tropical storms and
trade winds in the eastern Pacific, and the result is
cooler-than-normal waters, as in a La Niña event, the scientists
reported this month in the Journal of Climate.

In a year or two, the cool water pattern evolves into a pool of El Niño-like warm water, the scientists said.

The Times closes with words from an expert:

“We still don’t quite understand
this beast,” Dr. Hathaway said. “The theories we had for how the
sunspot cycle works have major problems.”

MORE: TheTimes coverage coverage of quiet sunspots last fall included this on climate change:

Scientists are not sure why this minimum has been especially minimal, and the episode is even playing into the global warming
debate. Some wonder if this could be the start of an extended period of
solar indolence that would more than offset the warming effect of
human-made carbon dioxide emissions. From the middle of the 17th
century to the early 18th, a period known as the Maunder Minimum,
sunspots were extremely rare, and the reduced activity coincided with
lower temperatures in what is known as the Little Ice Age.

Compared
to the Maunder Minimum, the current pace of sunspots “makes it look
like we’re having a feast, not a famine,” Dr. Hathaway said.

Posted by:
Obama played on mistakenly assumed guilt about racism; playing the homophobia card is a similarly cheap trick. |
July 21, 2009 at 10:03 PM

The number of people who think Obama can improve the economy is down a sobering 19 percentage points from the euphoric days just before his inauguration. The same for expectations about creating jobs. Also down significantly: the share of people who think he can reduce the deficit, remove troops from Iraq and improve respect for the U.S. around the world, all slipping 15 points.

WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior administration official says billions of dollars to raise fees for doctors treating Medicare patients are not covered by President Barack Obama's pledge to pay for health care legislation.
Budget Director Peter Orszag said Tuesday that's because the administration always assumed the money would be spent to prevent a cut of more than 20 percent in doctor fees.

The Congressional Budget Office said last Friday the higher payments cost $245 billion over 10 years. It said including the money in the overall bill would result in deficits totaling $239 billion.

On Friday, a few hours earlier, the president declared: "I've said that health-insurance reform cannot add to our deficit over the next decade. And I mean it."

Clarice - its not a sail boat but I think I might be able to arrange cocktails there for you.

SBW - the owners of the boat are family friends. They are paying my son to go to mate school as well as diesel marine school. He will also be mentored by the owners of a yacht brokerage biz. The ultimate aim of this project is to set my son up in business servicing "small" yacht owners for which our friend believes there might be a lucrative niche market.

We'll see how the project goes. In the near term, my son might meet some people at the yacht club who are looking for a young man to do exactly what my son is doing - and, if so, I'll contact you via your email and see if your son might be interested.

Its a heck of a good life for these kids. They get to live on the boat and go on all the cruises. Ofcourse, they've got to care for the boat and do all the grunt labor while cruising but think of all they'll learn, all the places they'll see, and all the people they'll meet! Could turn into one hell of business, too.

I've been on one of the greatest of those yachts twice--before the owner sold it for something even bigger. He kept it in the Caribbean in winter and the Riviera in summer..there was at least one staff for every passenger. Many of the staff were kids who hung around the yacht clubs in Newport until a gig came up. Much of the time they were alone on this gorgeous boat.

It had been made in Italy and the interior fittings were breathtaking.

It made me realize how I'd misspent my youth studying and working.
Niters.

Bush didn't have to steal nothin'. We gave him everything he wanted, so why is he enjoying his retirement, leaving us to suffer
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

Posted by:
'Cause you see there's somethin' happenin' but you don't k now what it is, do you Mr. Jones? |
July 21, 2009 at 11:12 PM

If the sun directs the climate, there must be a multiplier, which introduces the risk of runaway amplification. The absence of such runaways is for him sort of evidence that the sun doesn't run the climate. I think it probably does, but through some mechanism that is modulated by the oceanic oscillations, or perhaps by enough different mechanisms as to be self leveling or centering, and therefore immune to a runaway multiplier effect.

I think we'll get around to it eventually. The key is going to be in the interface between the sun, and the clouds, and the oceans, maybe throw in some Magnetic field gyrations just for fun.

After sifting through several days of op-ed pieces from the left and right and center, I get the real feeling that there is real blood in the water on this health care business. One thing about journos is that they love to knock people off of pedestals. The question is whether that impulse will be negated by the impulse to protect what they created.

So Barry slips in the polls and the press goes schizo trying to decide how to respond.

They may send me off to a camp, but at least they'll send me laughing.

The President and his legions are pressing hard to get the House and Senate to act before they go on their August recess in a couple of weeks. Frankly it is not too much to say their efforts are tantamount to an all out offensive to advance the Culture of Death across boundaries never before thought to be reachable.

Right now there are three bills upon which action has already been taken. The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions has reported out a Kennedy bill on a straight party line vote 13-10. A similar bill backed by the House Democratic leadership has been approved in two House committees.

All three of these bills call for "federally mandated coverage of abortion by nearly all health plans (not just the federal government plans you have read about - RAM), federally mandated recruitment of abortionists by local health networks, and nullification of many state abortion laws. They would also result in federal funding of abortion on a massive scale."

Regardless, of how you feel about abortion, Do you want to fund partial birth abortion? infanticide? Do you want the Federal govment deciding on who lives and dies and then asking you to pay for it? This isn't just a kill Granny bill. Call, write, and make a difference.

Hi, Soylent. I always have so many questions that I want to ask you but I know you can't answer. :) Hope you are well!

Jim Rhoads,

I found something that will shut up any liberal about AGW. All you have to do is scream "CO2 is plant food you idiot"!! (It works for me every time.) Get your camera out and take a picture while you say it...priceless!

The 10:00 PM Live News I am watching right now starts out with the reporter at Channel 2 holding up the report and looking in the camera and saying "This report was leaked to the media today." He then acknowledged that it was not allowed under the current rules of these things for this report to have been leaked.

Obviously that is a violation of Ethics, if not illegal, by whomever illegally or unethically leaked this preliminary report.

Sarah's Lawyer or Spokesperson is saying they believe the complainant illegally leaked this preliminary report, but the complainant is reported as denying she leaked it.

Man do I hope we get to the bottom of this. The ADN (Anchorage Daily News) is providing no other info (naturally) so I'm currently limited to a 30 second blurb on the 10:00 PM Local TV News and local Talk Radio to try to figure out what's going on. And why the story would first break on the AP, and not in the local ADN, tells me this is still an issue where whoever is trying to smear Sarah is doing it with the assistance of the National media lapdogs versus the local reporters. Makes sense. Probably easier to damage her nationally that way, plus easier to hide the route via which this was illegally/unethically leaked.

And bottom line remains, that the point that she can't ethically use a legal and transparent Legal Defense Fund to help pay her legal Defense Bills is BullS$%t! I want heads to roll over this one.

Plenty of targets up here no question about it, but I would instead love to see a Second Amendment March in DC, starting out with an orbit around The NEWSeum, that PC monument to the Press, and then heading off to The Capitol with all the ordinance and megaphones an angry populace could shoulder. That'd be my druthers.

Yes, it's a cheap hit, the atty Daniel, is a longtime Democratic contributor, the firm
Perkins, Coie, was the law firm of the Obama campaign, of course they defended a terrorist, Osama's driver, complainant is
a longtime activist for Begich, who replaced
Stevens, after the fraudulent conviction

Leo's cribbing of Marc Ambinder's sad exposure of his fear of the birther bit is reminiscent of the mama bird faking a broken wing for the slavering predator. If Leo thought it up himself, it's just more proof of the insidious prevalence of this fear borne response. The cross currents are this; of course, it's absurd to think that Obama was born anywhere but Honolulu, but it's not the least bit nutty to ask him to 'Show Me'. There's the rub, and why the suppression of the issue and the marginalizing of the 'birthers' is counterproductive. It's a pressure cooker, and the heat is on.

It's Obama's own actions that are creating the increasing doubt, and Leo's smart enough to know that and honest enough to admit it to himself. But we'll get his plasticized dashboard jesus instead. It's when Leo catches a glimpse of himself in the rear view that things get interesting.

Amazing that it is an ethics violation for Palin to use money a PAC raised for her ethics charges but just fine and dandy for Clinton to raise millions to pay for his legal bills while he was president. Does something seem a wee bit out of kilter with this to you?

I used to live in Annapolis right next to the old Trumpy's boatyard. There was a bar right across the street and a lot of youngpeople would hang out there to get hired to work on the yachts or deliver them for Trumpy. Many of them spent years going from one town to another where the yachtsmen would gather and just sign on for a crew position. Great way of life for those so inclined. I ended up allegic to seafood and fish so it would not work for me but it sure worked for them.

There were also a whole lot of people who lived on the boats in the yacht club and at the municipal anchorages.

With regard to this latest complaint against Palin, it's irrelevant to compare her to any other politician with a defense fund because the "finding" applies only to the Governor of Alaska. As noted in one of the cited articles

unlike other states, Alaska's governor has no legal counsel's office to defend the governor from allegations brought against the governor in her official capacity.

It's an oddity of Alaskan law that doesn't apply elsewhere and I don't expect to see fixed until a Democratic Party member is elected governor.

The Lt Governor, Sean Parnell, brought it up on local Talk Radio about 3 weeks back, and said they were trying to get the State Legislature to rectify the problem. The same situation did not apply to any of the State Legislator's, only to the Governor and Lt Governor. I haven't followed it closely since then, but have heard nothing about it since that radio interview, and expect nothing for the immediate future. Hopefully next Legislative session. Parnell has a more cordial working relationship with the State Pol's than does Sarah, having come up a more traditional route, so at least for the immediate future there is less incentive for folks to twist a knife in his back.